Sikh

WASHINGTON - Raised on his father's and grandfather's tales of military service in India, Amitoj Chhabra wanted nothing more than to follow in their footsteps and join the U.S. Air Force. "I dreamt it. I slept it. It was all I ever thought about 24/7," Chhabra recalled. But the dream died before he even reached boot camp. When he tried to enlist, Chhabra, a Sikh from Reno, was told that his long hair and beard, which Sikhs are religiously mandated to keep unshorn, collided with Air Force grooming requirements.

A Washington man who attacked a Sikh cabdriver, beating him until he suffered kidney failure, will go to prison for more than three years for committing a federal hate crime. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle sentenced Jamie Larson to 40 months in prison for yelling racial slurs and beating taxi driver Kashmira Hothi. Larson, 50, admitted that he attacked Hothi, a Sikh from India, because he believed Hothi was of Middle Eastern descent. In court Tuesday, Coughenour called the defendant's conduct "absolutely unacceptable.

A Washington man who attacked a Sikh cabdriver, beating him until he suffered kidney failure, will go to prison for more than three years for committing a federal hate crime. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle sentenced Jamie Larson to 40 months in prison for yelling racial slurs and beating taxi driver Kashmira Hothi. Larson, 50, admitted that he attacked Hothi, a Sikh from India, because he believed Hothi was of Middle Eastern descent. In court Tuesday, Coughenour called the defendant's conduct "absolutely unacceptable.

SEATTLE - A man accused of brutally attacking a Sikh cab driver, stomping on him as he lay on the ground and ripping out part of his beard, has been indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with a hate crime. The indictment of Jamie Larson, 49, of Federal Way, Wash., replaces earlier state charges. Conviction under the federal hate crimes statute carries a potential penalty of 10 years in prison. King County authorities who initially investigated the case said the taxi driver, a native of India, was wearing a traditional Sikh turban when he responded to a request from Auburn police on Oct. 17 to take Larson home from a Fred Meyer store, where he was drunk, falling in the bushes and refusing to leave. Along the way, the driver later told police, Larson commented on his turban and told him he shouldn't have come to the U.S., saying his father was a soldier who had fought for America.

Indian police in Punjab state killed a top member of the most active Sikh extremist group and said he was the chief suspect in three bus massacres that shocked India last month. Ranjit Singh Rana, a self-styled general of the Khalistan Commando Force separatist group, was shot with his brother, Inder Pal Singh, in a gun battle in western Punjab.

A federal jury today acquitted a Sikh computer expert of plotting to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi but found him guilty of two lesser charges. After 15 hours of deliberations, the jury found Gurpartap Singh Birk innocent of plotting to assassinate Gandhi during his U.S. visit last June and trying to hire a hit man to kill him. The panel found Birk guilty of planning a "military expedition" against India and of conspiring to obtain explosives illegally.

Sikh terrorists assassinated the top prison administrator of Punjab state near his home in Chandigarh on Saturday and then escaped on a motor scooter, police said. Trilok Chand Katoch, 57, inspector general of prisons, was the highest-ranking police official to be killed since Sikh extremists launched a terrorist campaign in 1980. He was due to retire in September. Police said that Katoch was returning to his home from a market when two Sikh gunmen accosted him.

The second suspected gunman who allegedly opened fire at a Sikh sports event in Sacramento County has been caught in India five years after the fatal shooting, the FBI announced. Amandeep Singh Dhami, 28, went on the run after the August 2008 attack at the Gurmukh Singh Johal Memorial Tournament, according to the FBI. One person -- 26-year-old Parmjit Pamma Singh -- died in the shooting, and several more were injured. Spectators were able to hold down the other shooter -- 28-year-old Gurpreet Singh Gosal -- until Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene, some of them using hockey sticks and cricket bats, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Amardeep Singh is a typical American guy -- born in New Jersey, raised by a soccer mom, die-hard Yankees fan, player of fantasy football, married with two kids, attorney. Yet almost every time he travels, he said, he is pulled over by TSA agents for a secondary screening. Why? Singh is Sikh. For religious reasons, he wears a turban. And the turban makes TSA agents nervous. Most times he flies, said Singh, agents pat down his turban and swab his hands for traces of chemicals.

A Columbia University professor who is Sikh was beaten and injured by a pack of men on bicycles near New York City's Central Park over the weekend, raising concerns once again about Sikhs' and Muslims' vulnerability to hate crimes in the United States. Dr. Prabhjot Singh, 31, told reporters Monday that he heard his attackers say, "Get him!" in addition to calling him "Osama" and "terrorist," apparently mistaking him for a Muslim. Sikhism is a separate religion. “I felt somebody grab my beard while on a bike, hit my chin," said Singh, who is an assistant professor of international and public affairs as well as a practicing physician in East Harlem.

It's been a year since Wade Michael Page opened fire at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis. Since then, some basic facts about Page have come to light. We now know that he was involved with white supremacy groups and that he was the founding member and vocalist for a neo-Nazi band. A former soldier, he had been heard to disparage Muslims, calling them "towel heads. " Even Page's body served as a temple for his racist beliefs, bearing a tattoo of the number "14. " Among white supremacists, this stands for a 14-word credo coined by one of their heroes, David Lane: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.

Authorities are investigating a possible hate crime after the word "terrorist" was spray-painted on the walls surrounding a Sikh temple in Riverside. The vandalism occurred sometime overnight Monday at the Riverside Gurdwara in the 7900 block of Mission Boulevard, said Riverside County sheriff's Deputy Albert Martinez. Investigators are treating it as a hate crime unless their inquiry reveals otherwise, he said. Martinez said the department has notified other agencies, including the FBI. High priest Anantvirr Singh told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that although graffiti had been written on the walls "many, many times," this latest incident was the first he considered hate speech.

Longer than three hours, it's more marathon than sprint, but director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's epic "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" (Run, Milkha, Run) - about India's legendary track-and-field star Milkha Singh, nicknamed "The Flying Sikh" - is often an engrossing example of the sweeping, stirring biography. Played by an ab-chiseled, grimacing and judiciously ebullient Farhan Akhtar, Singh is a man born of tragedy, grit and achievement: Orphaned by religious riots during the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, he found his athletic calling in the army, eventually setting 400-meter world records and representing India at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

The main Sikh political party, Akali Dal, said Friday that government concessions to its demands are not enough and threatened a campaign of civil disobedience in Punjab state beginning June 1. Paramilitary units and thousands of police marched through Amritsar, holy city of the Sikhs, as about 100 Sikh leaders held a strategy meeting Friday at the sacred Golden Temple.

After a tense week in which two rival factions of militant Sikhs threatened to seize the Golden Temple here, that holiest shrine of the Sikh faith remained in control of a moderate temple management committee Friday, backed by the state government of Punjab.

June 10, 2013 | By Mark Magnier and Hashmat Baktash, Los Angeles Times

KABUL, Afghanistan - Outsiders may have trouble distinguishing between the turbans worn by Afghan Sikhs, with their tighter folds, varied colors and tucked-in edges, and those worn by Afghan Muslims, usually black or white with the end hanging down the wearer's back. The subtle differences, however, and what they represent, have fueled widespread discrimination against Afghan Sikhs, members of the community say, prompting many to move away amid concern that the once-vibrant group could disappear.

FRESNO -- An 82 year-old Sikh man was beaten with a steel pipe outside a Fresno temple in what police believe is a hate crime, setting the Central Valley's well-established Sikh community on edge. Piara Singh, strong for his age and universally known as baba-ji -- Punjabi for grandfather -- spends the nights at Nanaksar Sikh Temple to watch over the grounds and the preparation of the free daily meals that Sikh temples traditionally serve to...